24 November 2010 Uwaawh... Today I learn little things about my culture. After a short talk with one of the teacher in my school about her method of teaching which I have just observed, she began to tell me many things about the school and the people of Mandar. Just like me, she is an expatriat from Java. She grew in Borneo and then married Mandar man and lived ever since in Majene. With this various background, she understand quite well three different culture : Java, Banjar, and Mandar. She told me about many things, from the people character up to the black magic and poisoning things and how those things are related and inherited (let’s talk about this black believe other time, pray to God that you’ll be far from these things). “Orang Jawa itu umumnya lebih rajin dan disiplin. Di Kalimantan misalnya, daerah trans(-migrasi) itu lebih maju karena penduduknya dari Jawa. Umumnya mereka lebih tekun. Orang Mandar sama saja dengan orang Banjar, malas. Mungkin karena memang suasananya tidak mendukung untuk seseorang bekerja keras. Di sekolah ini misalnya,guru-guru datang selalu terlambat dengan waktu istirahat yang sangat lama tetapi pulang tepat waktu.” The slow progress of education in Majene is not just about language, she added. It’s about the support of other stakeholders such as family, and the teachers themselves. Kids don’t see the discipline or even hardworking people around them as much as in Java. Together with the disunderstanding of Bahasa Indonesia, the education problem gets even more complex. Head master is actually supposed to lead the teachers to become the good examples. But then, other local culture stand in the way. Here in Mandar, there is some kind of hierarchy within the society. The people inherited the blood of previous local kingdom families should be called Daeng while their servant should be called Puang. Some people could be angry to be called, just, Sir. In the same way, it was ackward for common people to tell the “highness” the right way to do things when they did mistakes. Some teachers in my school are those ‘highness’ generation while my headmaster is the ‘common people’. So here we go, there are no discipline around my school. “Suatu waktu saya terganggu dengan berisiknya kelas di sebelah saya. Saya keluar untuk melihat apa yang terjadi (mungkin mau menegur juga). Betapa kagetnya saya waktu melihat bahwa sang guru sedang duduk di mejanya, melepas jilbab, dan meminta para murid untuk mencari kutu di rambutnya”. It gets even crazier! It’s not just teachers don’t have the real willingness to teach the student, but the use the students for their own good during the time. And they use the student in the student’s time to study. Tomorrow is November 25, 2010. My bos said that it is Teacher’s day. I planned to ask the student to sing a song called “Terima kasih, guruku”. I also will give the teacher a short mandar local wisdom quotation. I hope these little things will motivate them to appreciate their  honorable job and be more responsible to it.